


The Case of the Disappearing Don

by moth2fic



Series: The Malfoy Connection [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover. - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 09:20:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth2fic/pseuds/moth2fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Hathaway was unaware of his wizarding heritage until meeting Robbie Lewis triggered his magic - to a point where he couldn’t ignore it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Disappearing Don

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lewis_challenge comm's Valentine’s Weekend Love Spectacular on LJ. The first sentence is a prompt given by tetsubinatu. I just couldn’t resist! Splendid and rapid beta by Fictionwriter to whom many and heartfelt thanks are due. Harry Potter does appear in the story but blink and you'll miss him.

James' father refused to allow him to attend Hogwarts. He was finished with all that after his witch of a wife went back to her people. 

Once, just once, his mother collected him for a weekend, and he remembered his father waving goodbye as they drove off, a frown marring his handsome face.

They drove to an enormous house in the country and met some incredibly boring people who were cousins of some kind, not close, but close enough to be called family. There was a boy about his age, with similar blond hair and angular features - they clearly shared some genes - and a huge helping of arrogance that showed itself in a sneer. 

"You mean you don't go to school at all?" The boy, Draco, he thought, though that was an odd name and perhaps he was mistaken, looked at him as if he might sprout wings or green spots any minute.

"Of course I go to school," he said. "St. Xavier's High."

"Muggle schools don't count." What on earth did he mean? What was a muggle school? St Xavier's was a highly regarded place; people moved house to be within its catchment area.

He tried to say some of this, but the brittle, cut-glass voice interrupted. "And I suppose you can't do magic at all."

"Give me a pack of cards and I'll show you a trick or two," he muttered, and was surprised to find the other boy doubled over, almost crying with laughter. Neither of them spoke until the paroxysm of mirth was over. 

"If that's what they teach you, no wonder you're an idiot. But that's the problem with muggle relatives. If Cousin Polyhymnia had respected her parents and married where she should have done we wouldn't have to entertain the likes of you. But of course she's a squib so what could we have expected?" They were summoned for tea at that point but he was wondering all the time who Cousin Polyhymnia was and why she hadn't respected her parents. And what a squib might be.

After tea the boys went out into the grounds and James admired some of the flowers in a stiff, formal voice that should have told Draco, if that was his name, that James wanted conversation as little as he apparently did. But the obnoxious cousin didn't seem to get the message and starting prosing about some place called Hogwarts, which he assured James was much better than St. Xavier's and then said, "But you're almost a mudblood so they wouldn't have you in Slytherin House. I expect you'd be a Hufflepuff and I wouldn't have anything to do with you anyway. So do you think you'll be coming next term? Your mother seemed to be saying something of the sort to my parents."

Before James could make sense of any of this his mother was calling him to the car and they started the drive home. He remembered saying very little to her, still confused by the visit and the boy, and then being told by his father to say a last goodbye to her.

"For I won't have you corrupting him, Polly," he heard his father's gruff voice saying. "And Hogwarts is out of the question. He's doing well at St. Xavier's and I intend to see that he continues to do so."

"I'm not even..."

"...a witch? No, but you're certainly a bitch, and you're going to leave my son alone."

"Our son."

"Not any more."

His mother had flung herself out of the house and slammed the door. And that, James thought, had been that. There had been occasional birthday cards and one attempt to call, when his father had pretended they weren't at home and had physically restrained James from answering the door. Nothing else.

James had excelled at St. Xavier's and then at the seminary and so on and so forth until the day he had been asked, not unkindly, why so many of his text books ended up scorched and how it was that sometimes his attention seemed to be on something nobody else could see or hear. Visionaries, it was gently explained, were not the norm in the English Catholic Church, and if he had anything of that nature to share, he'd better make confession first and see a psychiatrist second and only then would any of his superiors want to listen. Also, burning one's bible was not the act of a priest or even a would-be priest. 

As James had no more idea than his questioners about how these things came about and as he had no desire to see any psychiatrists, thank you, he left the church, under a nebulous and greyish cloud that had followed him at a distance ever since. It hung over all the things he saw out of the corners of his eyes and never quite identified. At one point he'd thought glasses might help but the optometrist had insisted James had 20/20 vision. Sometimes James thought it might be nearer 360/? but he couldn't think of anyone to discuss it with rationally.

He tried asking his father about his biological heritage and feared for the old man's blood pressure. 

"Biological heritage?" Ernest Hathaway's eyes bulged and an alarming shade of red crept up his neck. "Is that your blasted mother you're talking about? I'll tell you, your biological heritage from my side of the family is as good as it gets. True blue, through and through." He was beginning to gobble like a Christmas turkey and James changed the subject.

He tried googling topics such as spontaneous combustion but found that most instances ended in the death of the combuster rather than damage to holy books. He even tried to trace his mother but there were, it seemed, a lot of women her age answering to the name of Polly and there were no Polly Hathaways at all.

The police seemed less concerned about a tendency to pyromania so long as it kept itself to his own belongings in his own apartment. And it did. It even died down once he was trained and fully operational, initially as a constable then later as a fledgling detective. Perhaps he was too busy to think the sort of thoughts that had turned his copy of St. Augustine to ash and left a black stripe down the cover of a Life of St. Ignatius Loyola. Or perhaps something like The Racialisation of British Policing simply didn't attract his ire or his incendiary leanings. Racism would, he thought, but then by joining the police he hoped to make a difference so the books were a help rather than something to rail against.

And so life became quieter, more like the lives of his colleagues, and he was able to push thoughts of burning books, boys who talked about muggles, and squibs (damp squibs? some kind of firework?) into some lockable compartment of his mind and pay undivided attention to the very real and pressing problems of twenty first century Oxford.

Until he met Robbie Lewis.

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It was only after a few weeks working with Lewis that James realised his best handkerchief, one of a set of three that he had been sent by an aunt for Christmas, was charred around the edges. It was an embarrassing discovery because it was only when he pulled the thing out of his pocket in Innocent's office that he saw the damage. Innocent raised her eyebrows and Robbie looked faintly amused. Neither of them said anything. James blew his nose, a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary, and felt a blush creeping up his neck. The incident was never discussed but from then on he made sure he blew his nose in the privacy of a toilet cubicle or used a tissue from a box on his desk. 

There were other things. At first he thought he'd just mislaid his pen, but when he found it on top of the bookcase, at the very back, he started wondering about poltergeists. Catholicism had room for poltergeists and exorcisms and all manner of things. James was no longer sure about any of these but he was sure he hadn't put his pen up there in a fit of absent-mindedness. In the waste bin, maybe. In the fridge, perhaps. In his coat pocket, quite likely. But not on top of the high bookcase at the back. He was a tall man but he would have had to stand on a chair to reach.

One night, his pyjamas were inside out, carefully folded as usual but equally carefully inverted. The next week his tie sported a pattern of tiny frogs, something he would never have chosen and did not remember receiving as a gift. Robbie admired the tie.

"Quite a change for you, lad," he said. "Suits you, as well. A bit of colour never hurts." Didn't it? James puzzled about that for a while.

"Blood," he offered. "Blood's red and that can mean hurt." Robbie looked at him as if he was what Robbie would call daft and carried on with the work they were doing.

Then sometimes when he got up in the morning the contents of whatever folder he'd brought home to read were distributed in a tasteful but alarming pattern on his kitchen worktop. Diamonds, circles, graphs that showed a way forward on a case. He put it down to what he called sleepworking, like sleepwalking but more productive, but didn't dare tell anyone how he came by his flashes of inspiration. 

"Good work, lad!" Robbie would say, and James was never sure whether to accept the praise or mutter something unconvincing or even try to explain.

It got worse, of course, and one evening he found himself reaching for his glass of wine only to have it gently drift into his hand. Shaken, he reached for some crisps and those, too, came to his silent call, like a flock of little birds, leaving the packet empty and neatly folded. The last crisp ended as a charred mess of black on the front of his shirt and he knew, finally, that something was going on. Something difficult. Something neither the seminary nor the police college had prepared him for.

He phoned his father. "I need to get in touch with my mother," he said, and waited for the explosion which came after a very brief pause.

"Why would you want that? Why now? What has that witch, I mean bitch, ever done for you? How could you throw our whole lives in my face like this?" Ernest ranted for a while and then said, very quietly, "16, Hawthorn Close, Botley"

"Botley, Oxford or Botley, Southampton?"

"Oxford."

So she'd been close to him all this time, and he hadn't known. Well, he could remedy that.

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A short time later James was in possession of a number of facts, facts he rather wished he hadn't heard of. It appeared that Polyhymnia Malfoy, Polly for short, was a member of a respectable wizarding family and had been cast out to fend for herself, not because she was a squib...

"What's a squib?"

"Someone who should have been a witch or wizard but is born without magic."

"Like a damp squib?"

"Yes, I suppose so. I don't know which word came from where."

...but because she refused to marry a very kind wizard who was only three times her age, wanted her as a housekeeper and was prepared to overlook her magical deficiencies if she could cook. 

"So you married Dad instead?"

"Essentially, yes, although there were some rebellious years at Cambridge first, while I got some qualifications that I thought made up for never having gone to Hogwarts. Maths and stuff," she added rather vaguely. "That's where I met Ernest. At Cambridge, I mean, not Hogwarts. Ernest is as unmagical as they come. He'd never have got onto the train, never mind past the doors." 

James let the train reference slide over him as something to explore another time. "When we went to visit those people with that boy..."

"Draco?"

"Yes." So that was his name, after all. Odd. "...he told me you were talking about me going to this Hogwarts place, but if I'm not magical, it doesn't make sense."

Polly sighed. "You do have magical ability, James, and an owl came with your invitation to Hogwarts. That's what your father and I rowed about. It precipitated our break-up. We would have parted anyway before long, but for him, that owl was the last straw."

James wondered if his mother was taking some kind of substance and if so, whether his position as a police officer would oblige him to do anything about it, but then she said softly,

"You must have noticed you can do things other people can't. And I didn't get the chance to send you to Hogwarts where they could have taught you to control it. So if there's any damage caused, it's my fault for not standing up to your father and his fault for being an absolute beast. You do have unexplained flashes of what we might call ability, don't you?" She looked searchingly at him. "You had a tantrum once when you were two - well, more than once, but this particular time you set your high chair on fire."

It all fell into place. Even the hazy memories of that plastic conflagration and meltdown on the kitchen floor and his mother's shocked face at the time. And every scorch and flame since. And the things that moved when he wanted them to rather than waiting until he touched them. It must have shown in his face because she smiled sadly.

"James, you must have wondered what on earth was going on. I'm so sorry. But now that you've found me again, we can get someone to help you control it all."

"You mean you can't?"

"Of course not. I'm a squib, remember. No magic at all. But it could have been worse. Angelina Witherspoon turned her next door neighbour's cat into a toad when the creature scratched her. The parents had to tell the neighbour an involved story about a car and the remains being too awful to see. You didn't burn things very often, darling."

It turned out that help meant Draco Malfoy because it was, after all, better to keep things like retarded adult wizards in the family, and Draco had specialised in what James would have called an esoteric branch of psychiatry with chemistry and a foreign language but that Draco called legilimency and occlumency with potions and parseltongue. All of which left him qualified to do nothing much except private tutoring. James learnt some kind of self-control and stopped burning all his handkerchiefs. Draco got some - well, a lot - of money from his grateful Aunt Polyhymnia and Ernest washed his hands of the lot of them.

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"Draco," said James. The way he enunciated it let Draco know at once that there was a question coming that he probably wouldn't like much but that he ought to answer if he knew what was good for him. James was not a policeman for nothing. 

"Well?"

"Can I do the kind of magic that you find in fairy tales?"

"?" Draco's eyebrows met his hairline.

"Love potions and turning people into frogs and finding lost treasure," James clarified.

"I suppose so, but shall we concentrate on making little balls of light now that you've suddenly got the knack and stopped worrying the house elves?"

"But could I learn?"

"Which? Or were you thinking of all three at once? I believe there's a children's tale about a frog in a well..."

"Love potions. Or at least, one love potion." James was very definite about this.

Draco looked at him askance. "I could make you a potion," he said slowly, but it would cost you, and I'd have to know quite a lot about the person you intended it for." James thought he'd think about that.

"What about the burning?" he asked instead. "What was all that about? What is it about, for that matter?"

Draco looked at him as if he were something unpleasant he'd picked up on his shoe in Knockturn Alley. "Passion," he said shortly. "Uncontrolled fire magic is a sign of passion." James continued to think. "All that passion," said Draco. "In Slytherin we'd have teased it out of you in no time. Passion should only ever be fake and used in pursuit of something you want."

"But if I want it passionately?" He wasn't sure, but he thought Draco sniffed.

"And do I need a wand," he asked. His mother had said something about wands and how expensive they were and how you had to go to London to somewhere called Diagon Alley. 

"Probably not," said Draco. "Children do, to help them to concentrate and focus, and then of course for most people it becomes a habit and they can't function without it. But you have a well-trained mind, in muggle terms." James thought that was probably high praise. "You should be able to manage on your own." 

The lessons continued, in a more or less regular fashion, and soon James could light a candle, pour a cup of tea and unbutton his shirt without using his fingers. He didn't think he'd have a great deal of use for any of these skills. He had electric light in his apartment, he didn't like tea and he wore T-shirts when off duty. He didn't think taking his shirt off at the police station without touching it would be a popular party trick. And he was still charring things slightly when he forgot and let his self-control slip. The pencils on his desk looked like refugees from a bonfire and he hadn't a completely whole handkerchief to his name, though none of his new ones were burnt right through.

Then Draco taught him, one wonderful, magical day, to fly a broom, and life was perfect.

Except that there was still Robbie.

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Innocent called them to her office looking so much like a cat that had got some cream that James automatically looked around for the saucer.

"Murder," she said. "Presumed murder, anyway. A disappearance at best, but there's blood at the scene. South Hinksey," she went on in answer to Robbie's raised eyebrows. "The neighbours reported a disturbance and the old man who lived there, a retired professor, hasn't been seen since yesterday. Plus, of course, there's the blood. He's elderly and frail and wherever he is he hasn't got his medicines with him so the outlook is bleak. Go and see what you can find out." James thought Innocent enjoyed murder, as if it were a jigsaw puzzle laid out for her entertainment. But she liked to watch other people solving the puzzle for her. 

South Hinksey was next to Botley, he remembered, next along after North Hinksey. All three were ancient villages that had been absorbed by Oxford's sprawl. They lay to the west of the city, almost on the A34 where it turned into the Oxford Bypass. There would be roaring lorries, signs to the Park and Ride, and his mother's house just up the road.

"Nice," said Robbie, and James assumed he was referring to the houses in the street they'd parked in, and not the weather, which was damp and dispiriting. 

"Retired dons and so on," he said, looking at the mock Tudor house that hid coyly behind mock topiary, the kind that had a head start provided by a wire base. 

"The missing person's a retired don, anyway. Theodore White, scholar of palaeontology, fellow of some college or other. I suppose we'll find out which in a minute. Come on." Robbie led the way between a row of tortured green birds (and one rather plump green mouse whose ears needed trimming) and knocked at the door. 

A harried constable answered and it turned out that Professor White had no close family. His wife was dead and his only son was in Australia. No siblings, nobody at all. No friends, according to the neighbours, who had looked in on him occasionally.

"Just to make sure he was all right," said Emma Parks, anxiously. "We didn't want to impose if he wanted solitude, you know, but he was old, and you always think of falls and such, or at least..." She trailed off and Lewis smiled at her. A pleasant woman who had tried to be neighbourly and was now in the middle of a police case. He looked at James who nodded slightly. Of course Robbie would take the woman back to her own house where she would be more comfortable and more likely to remember anything unusual she'd seen or heard. They followed her back between the birds and then up her own path, which was part of a paved area littered with bikes and a couple of footballs. She gestured to the mess and looked about to apologise but James stopped her. 

"We're not here to criticise your front garden," he said. "We're here to find Professor White."

"Poor Theo," she said, sighing as she opened her front door and ushered the policemen into her drawing room. Tea was offered and James refused, politely, then refused the flustered offers of alternatives, but Lewis said a cuppa would be just the thing and Emma disappeared momentarily leaving them to find somewhere in the overstuffed furniture where they could sit upright and look vaguely official instead of lounging like guests at a decadent party.

James watched Robbie, marvelling again at how easily he soothed witnesses and gentled them into talking freely. A skill, he thought, every bit as magical as lighting candles without a match, and a lot more useful. But he felt, rather than saw, his shirt cuff smouldering, and hastily grabbed his wrist to put out the fire.

The tea was almost finished, and James had availed himself of a digestive biscuit from the offered plate, when the owners of the bikes arrived home from school, filling the house with a hundred questions, some about food or homework but some about why there might be police all over next door, and who the visitors were and why, if they were also police, they weren't wearing uniform. This last question was addressed to them by a lad of about twelve who clearly thought they were some kind of bogus salesmen, capitalising on the police presence in the neighbourhood. Robbie calmed him with an explanation that made sense and proceeded to question him, and the others, very lightly and in the hearing of their mother. 

The children knew Theo White well. Uncle Theo, they called him. He was kind and friendly and likely to have sweets about the house. 

"And," said twelve-year old Adam, importantly, "he showed us magic, and we could never even work out how he was doing it. He should have been on the stage."

"I expect he enjoyed his university career much more than one in entertainment," said Emma, but she didn't say anything to contradict the child's announcement. 

James had a premonition. It was huge and black and hung over South Hinksey like a thunder cloud.  
"What tricks did he do?" he asked.

Adam shrugged. "The usual." Adam probably had no idea what 'the usual' would entail but the answer sounded 'cool'. "You know. Lighting a candle without a match." James tried not to gulp. "Finding a coin in someone's ear. Hatching a kitten out of an egg." James wondered momentarily what then happened to the kitten but didn't interrupt. "Breaking a watch and putting it back together again. Just -magic things."

"It would have to be a big egg." That was Robbie, but James knew it wouldn't have to be big at all.

"Did he have any other visitors apart from you?" he asked. Emma shook her head but Adam nodded. Children sometimes saw things adults were too busy to see, and the kids had, from the sound of it, been round at Theo's house quite a bit.

"There was this man," said Adam, ignoring his mother, delighted to be the focus of police attention even if there were no uniforms involved. "He came more than once. He was a bit scary; sort of dark and sinister. A bit like a horror movie." He looked round for approval but none of the adults so much as blinked so he continued. "He had white hair so we thought he was old, like Uncle Theo, but he didn't look kind. He looked mean. I think his name was Beetlejuice or something like that. He was always arguing with Uncle Theo. Then last week Uncle Theo said he knew at last, and the Beetlejuice man went away. I think he said he lived in Northmoor. Somewhere round there. He was telling Uncle Theo something about the river and he told us to keep quiet because children should be seen and not heard and if he heard us he'd take us back to Northmoor and feed us to the Thames. We kept quiet," he finished. 

"He wasn't really scary. I thought he was joking." Adam's sister Julia joined the conversation. "He did tricks, too. I thought they were cool."

"He snapped the buttons off Uncle Theo's cardigan," said Adam. "They rolled everywhere. I don't think Uncle Theo thought it was cool."

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"So," said Robbie as they got back into his car," we have someone with a strange name that sounds like Beetlejuice who lives in Northmoor or near, who argued with Theo White and was quite hostile toward him. Though snapping buttons off a cardigan is an odd thing to do and an even odder thing for the old man to allow. We'd better get back to the station and use the computer. This fellow shouldn't be too hard to find." James kept quiet though he longed to tell Robbie that if a wizard chose to snap off cardigan buttons there wouldn't be much the victim could do about it apart from attaching them again later. By magic or with a needle and thread, depending on magical ability or lack thereof. 

The computer flickered happily and came up with a couple of names. After it had tried to send them in the direction of various TV shows. A man called Calvin Beadle lived in Cumnor which was on the way to Northmoor, and a man called Betelgeuse Galloway lived in Northmoor itself. Those were the only two local names, local to Oxford at least, that were anything like Beetlejuice once they'd filtered for age and address. 

Innocent popped her head round the door. "Oh good. You're getting somewhere with the professor, I take it." She smiled. It was a smile that encompassed the wonder of computers, the obedience of her staff and the fact that all was well with her world. James scowled back and Robbie grinned in a half-hearted fashion. Then she left, having made it clear that this was her case, and that they had better be getting somewhere with it.

"It'd be quicker if I visited one and you visited the other," said Robbie. That wasn't correct procedure but he was right about speed. James wasn't about to argue because he didn't want to arrive at Galloway's house unannounced. The name Betelgeuse was suggestive of a wizarding background. A fellow wizard would sense his magic straight away and it would be hard to explain to Robbie if he suddenly got caught up in a magic duel. He doubted whether either name was that of the kidnapper or murderer they were seeking, but if Galloway was the criminal and was a wizard he would hardly have left evidence around anyway, so Lewis wouldn't find anything. They would both arrive back at the station none the wiser and look at the rest of the evidence, little though it was, they'd managed to accumulate. A bank account in the city centre, a phone number for one of Professor White's colleagues and a library card for the Bodleian. 

"I'll take Beadle, then, shall I?" He willed Robbie to agree and was relieved when his boss nodded. 

He drove to Cumnor, thinking about the fact that for once he was glad not to be with Robbie. Usually, he enjoyed their time together in the car. Sitting in such close proximity, even though nothing was going to happen, was pleasing - arousing but soothing. Today he was just pleased to be away from a possible wizarding encounter. His own theory was that White had fallen foul of some colleague and they had come to blows. He had probably been dragged back to a college or to the river or - well, they could think about it later. Not too much later; they wanted to find the man alive if that was still possible. The sign said 'Cumnor' and he needed to concentrate. The address was for a house on Tumbledown Hill and he found it easily enough. 

Beadle was at home. Indeed, he would have been hard put to it to leave without help. He was in a wheelchair and looked too frail to move the thing himself. A youngish woman, evidently a carer, opened the door but as soon as James saw Beadle he knew there was no way this man had caused Theo White's disappearance. He apologised for the intrusion, spinning a story about mistaken identity, and returned to his car. That left Galloway or the college dons.

Although he didn't think Galloway was any more likely a suspect than Beadle he had an itch between his shoulder blades that made him think of Robbie. Danger? Or just a desire to see the man? He didn't usually get quite that kind of itch but then they didn't often work separately. The sort of itch he got at night was different and not appropriate for considering whilst at work. He could easily drive to Northmoor from here and if he saw Robbie's car he could wait for him and they could have a drink in the little pub there. The thought of that, of sitting in the olde worlde atmosphere of The Red Lion, a pub he'd once visited, with Robbie by his side, warmed him. It was a cold wet day and perhaps they could have a meal. He remembered good food there.

Good food, warmth and Robbie. Comfort in what had become rather a bewildering world.

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When he reached Northmoor he parked outside the pub and walked. It was a small village, long but not deep. The church was on the same road as the pub but James ignored it; St Denys' might have been built when England was a Catholic country but nowadays it was firmly C of E and outside his sphere of interest. There were old houses, an ancient manor farm set back from the road and some slightly newer buildings, particularly at the extremities of the village, but after a quick glance that failed to alight on Robbie's car, he turned into Chapel Lane that led to Willow Pool. He thought Chapel Lane might have been Galloway's address but wasn't sure. 

Robbie's car was parked outside a cottage and James felt relief at having found the right place. But there was no sign of the car's owner and he looked at his watch. His boss had had time to turn Galloway's cottage inside out, never mind interrogate the man. Though of course he wouldn't search without someone else there, even with the owner's permission. This was just an exploratory visit, to determine whether it was worth coming back with a colleague (himself) or more backup (the boys in blue). Wasn't it? Had Galloway asked Lewis in for a cup of tea? Were they happily chatting by the fireside? These old cottages all had hearths, usually still in use, and if Galloway was a wizard he would certainly have a functional fireplace. But there was the need for speed if they were to find Theo White, and James mentally dismissed his earlier vision of himself and Robbie ensconced in The Red Lion. That had been wishful thinking and self-indulgent. They would need to get back to the city and perhaps he should turn around and go back there himself straight away. He could make a start on the colleges, find out which one White had taught at...

His thoughts were interrupted by an elderly woman who came out of one of the cottages. She was carrying rubbish to a bin that sat near the gate and James felt a moment's irritation at the new rules that filled England with blue, green, brown and black plastic in full view of most streets, town and country alike. She waved, and he crossed the road to her.

"If you're looking for Dr Galloway, he's gone down to the barn by Willow Pool," she said. "There's nobody in, so there's no use knocking. That's what I told the other young man. The one with the car." James interpreted this as meaning Robbie and supposed she would see them both as young. 

"Thank you," he said. "I'll stroll down and see if I can find them." A doctor? Or perhaps it was an academic doctorate and he was a former colleague of White's.

"You might and you might not." She frowned at his shoes. "Need wellies to get down there at the moment, you will. Wouldn't be surprised if the other one's stuck in the mud. Floods," she finished, and turned her back on him, re-entering her cottage without even another glance in his direction. 

James carried on down the lane, with a sense of foreboding that matched the uniformly grey sky and the mud on the road. He didn't think Robbie would have risked his polished shoes willingly. Surely he'd have gone back to his car and waited in comfort till Galloway returned from his barn. The rain was intermittent today but the sky looked threatening.

The mud was getting deeper, no longer just a smear on the tarmac left by farm vehicles. The road surface was barely visible and James' shoes were showing signs of splashes kicked up by his own steps. Still no sign of Robbie. He followed local news - all Innocent's men did if they didn't want to be caught napping. He recalled an item about the river near here - Thames, Isis, whatever. A local council had ordered sandbags, to be filled at point of need. When this year's floods had inevitably arrived the villagers duly queued to fill the bags only to find that the council, never one to turn down the opportunity to look green, had bought biodegradable bags. Sand that was poured in one end promptly left via the other or by the many and various holes in between. Was it Northmoor? He rather thought so. And floods were a fact of life in this triangle of flat land bordered by rivers. There were obviously floods here now. He could see, over the hedges, waterlogged fields and standing water with shivering sheep on small islands in the middle of what should have been meadows. 

There was a barn to his right and James saw smoke curling up through the roof tiles. Fire? And was this the barn the woman had meant? He couldn't see any others. Careless of his shoes and his trouser cuffs he charged through the nearest gate and ran at what he hoped was a swift plodge towards the building. His shoes squelched as he went.

"Robbie," he muttered as he ran. "Robbie, Robbie, Robbie."

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As he neared the door of the barn James could hear voices. They sounded strained but not panic-stricken and he slowed. It seemed unlikely he would have to rescue anyone unconscious, then. But the words drifted out to him with the smoke, that smelled - well, unpleasant but in a way that made him think of burnt pans rather than smouldering straw. He had no idea what was stored in the building, of course, but straw seemed likely to be one of the contents. There was no track such as would be used by farm vehicles, the sheep of the area were out in the meadow-turned-bog, and he couldn't hear any bleating from the barn. Straw, he decided, but the smoke said something else.

At the door he stopped to rearrange his thoughts. The building was mostly empty although he thought there might be an upper storey with bales of some kind, straw or hay. The outer walls were rendered but the inner ones were a kind of wattle and daub although they might not be as old as their structure would suggest. Towards the far end were three men. Two had white hair. One of these was fastened to a chair with iron chains. He was struggling and looked miserable. His nose had bled and his chin and shirt were rust red with dried blood. The other white haired man was stirring something in a large cauldron on a small calor gas burner. He was smiling and it was not a nice smile. The third man was tied to the wall, ropes attaching him to some of the wattle uprights and cross pieces in a parody of crucifixion. He was gagged but his eyes were awake and furious. Robbie.

James had to stop himself rushing to the rescue. It would not help if he ended up lashed to the walls alongside Lewis. He tried to catch Robbie's eye, to let him know that help was on the way, but his boss was intent on whatever the cauldron stirrer was doing. A quick glance showed James some of the things he had seen Draco working with in his potions lab, when their lessons had taken place in that holy of holies. Some glass stirrers, some very sharp blades, various plant materials and an assortment of small jars with unknown contents, some of which definitely had eyes. 

He backed out cautiously, but need not have worried. None of the occupants of the barn seemed to have noticed him. Quickly he found Draco's number on his mobile. It didn't look anything like a mobile number but Draco had assured him that if he ever had a magical emergency he had only to text Draco on this number and help would be on the way. Draco would apparate to the co-ordinates the phone would send. James had not yet learnt to apparate but he appreciated that it was a real skill and not a fairy tale. He clicked through the options until he could enter his message. 

\- help am at barn northmoor betelgeuse galloway has prisoners james -

The answer was almost instant.

\- which northmoor there r lots -

\- oxforshire i thought u cd read co-ordinates -

\- phone can i like to know where im going -

\- will u help -

"Don't be silly, James, of course I will." Draco was behind him, speaking very quietly and looking simply furious at the amount of unexpected mud on his shoes.

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James explained the entire situation in a stage whisper and the two men crept forward towards the barn as Draco whispered back,

"Betelgeuse has never been quite right in the head. In the war, he said he was siding with aliens, which didn't make sense. He caused a lot of damage to both sides." James was unsure whether Draco meant WW2 in which case Galloway was even older than he looked, which of course was possible for a wizard, or the wizarding war that he had heard about in snatches of conversation that made him wonder who the boy wonder was, the name of he-who-must-not-be-named, and how Hogwarts had been rebuilt quickly enough from what all accounts was rubble so that wizarding offspring could complete their education. St. Xavier's had suffered a minor roof leak that wrecked the language labs during his second year. They were not re-opened until he was in the sixth form. 

"I don't care if he's as mad as a March hare. He has my boss and the victim we're looking for tied up in there. But I'm assuming Theo White is a wizard too, so why hasn't he got free?"

"You said iron chains."

"Yes."

"Well then."

James remembered fairy stories and other tales of the supernatural. His eyes widened as he realised that White was thoroughly trapped. But how had Galloway managed to chain him? He asked, not expecting any answer but Draco surprised him.

"Oven gloves," was the prosaic reply.

Galloway would know Lewis was not a wizard so rope would be enough to hold him. 

They peered through the partly open door and listened to the conversation that was still going on inside. 

"Look here, Theo." Galloway sounded impatient. "I've been trying to get it out of you since I brought you here yesterday. You've evaded the issue with unconsciousness, feigned or real, so far, but you know you'll tell me eventually. Why not now? Save this muggle some pain. He shouldn't have come looking for you but I'll spare him if you're sensible. You always were a muggle-lover, with your college and your students and the children next door." He appeared to consider for a moment and then went on. "I could force you to take veritaserum but I don't know the right questions to ask. You could tell the truth all day and still not tell me what I want to know. So torture it is." He lifted something from the bench where his burner stood and casually swiped whatever it was across Robbie's left hand. There was a moan from behind the gag and James could see redness blossoming on his skin. A burn, he thought, rather than blood. He wanted to seize Galloway, wrestle him to the ground, batter him with his own weapon...

Draco laid a restraining hand on his arm. 

"More?" Galloway sounded as though he were offering a second helping at dinner. Theo's face fell forward, his chin meeting his chest. "

"Don't have - the faintest - idea what you want. You - know that. Told you - often enough." His voice was faint - fainter even than his idea. He was clearly at the end of his tether. Galloway swiped Robbie’s other hand, making a little 'tsk tsk' sound as he did, and White sighed. 

"Young man," he said, "I'd - help you - if I could. - Don't - know what - he wants."

"Don't play the stupid card with me, White," said Galloway. "It doesn't suit you. You told me you had the answer. You should have known I'd want to get it out of you."

"The answer to - what?" White sounded bewildered. 

"To the secret of immortality, of course."

"You thought - I - had that?" White was wheezing, laughing perhaps, despite his clearly fragile state.

"You said..."

"...I had - the answer. To a - problem that - palaeontologists have been - debating for years. About some - of the creatures - in the Burgess - Shale. I was so - happy. - Boasting. - But you - you..."

Galloway turned with an incoherent screech and slapped White across the face. What he would have done next they were not sure, because at that point Draco said, "I'll get White. You get your boss," and launched himself at Galloway. James was aware of some kind of fight behind him as he faced Robbie on his improvised cross. How could he get him down quickly? Without thinking very hard he summoned the part of his mind that had been practising so diligently with Draco.

" _Incendio_ ," he said quietly, making sure he was directing the magic at the ropes and not their prisoner. They parted, curling into ash at the knots, and Robbie staggered away from the wall. James had to catch him. He could hardly let him fall face down on the floor. And if he held him a little longer and a little tighter than was appropriate, well, he was willing to risk Robbie's displeasure for a moment's comfort for himself. But Robbie clung to him, as if he would never let go. James didn't mind at all. But he did feel they should see if Draco needed help.

He didn't. Galloway was trussed in the chains that had held White. Draco was wearing the oven gloves that had rested on the bench. He looked ready to prepare Galloway for the oven if James gave the word. White was hunched over in his chair, almost unconscious but certainly alive. And Galloway had a rapidly darkening bruise on his chin which went some way to explaining how Draco had overpowered him. Magic, it seemed, had not been necessary, though a knowledge of the properties of iron would of course have been important. 

"James." Robbie had raised burnt hands and ripped the gag out of his mouth. "Thank God you came. He got me somehow. Had me trussed like a turkey the minute I got here. Or a goose. Geese are foolish. I was stupid to approach him so close." Robbie was babbling, probably as a result of shock. "But you came. I thought I might never see you again."

"And you might not have done if he hadn't called me. What on earth were you thinking of, going up alone against a wizard in the first place?" Draco's voice dripped scorn. 

"Wizard? Oh, I suppose you mean a conjuror. He certainly tricked me all right. Sleight of hand and all that, eh?" Robbie, James decided, was in denial about what had happened but would probably realise sooner or later that no mere conjuror could have lashed him to the wall of the barn. 

"The main thing is, you're free now," he said, "and we've found White." The other main thing, he told himself, was that they could have the discussion about wizards and conjurors later. And the other really main thing was that he had held Robbie in his arms and the man was still clinging to his hand. 

"So who's the lad who helped you? Conscientious member of the public, is he?" Robbie looked from James to Draco thoughtfully.

"He's my cousin," said James. Part of the truth would have to do. They were too alike to pretend. "He lives near here and I happened to see him in the village." Draco raised an elegant eyebrow and James raised a similarly elegant one in return. Robbie, however, seemed satisfied with the half-explanation.

"Shall I read Galloway his rights or do you want to, lad?" James swallowed and looked at Draco, who was smirking. 

"That won't be necessary." A new voice turned all their heads, even White's. A young man with messy black hair, green eyes and an odd scar on his forehead was suddenly standing beside them. He was wearing a cloak even blacker than his hair and holding what had to be a wand in his hand. James and Draco accepted the apparition as nothing out of the ordinary but Robbie's mouth fell open. 

"And just where did you spring from and what gives you the authority to intervene in my arrest?" he said, as soon as his jaw was functioning normally.

"London," said the stranger. "And I'm intervening because he's my prisoner. I've been tracking his movements for days, and I need to arrest him and take him before the Wizengamot. He's been terrorising wizards and muggles alike, and it has to stop. I almost intervened to help but thought I'd stay unseen - you were doing such a good job."

"I agree it has to stop," said Robbie. "But this in an Oxford case. Has Innocent called in Scotland Yard? If so, she can tell me herself."

The green eyes held amusement. "I'm not a policeman, I'm an auror, and your assistant can tell you what that means if he wants to." He looked at James. "No? Then I'll just heal your hands and make sure you don't remember me, and we'll be off." He pointed the wand at Robbie who watched in fascination as the skin on his palms lost its redness and returned to its normal colour. "White, you'll get a witness summons by owl. Check into St. Mungo's if you don't feel better by tomorrow. And Draco, close your mouth. You and the muggle between you look like a nest of baby cuckoos." He pointed the wand again and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like Latin but perhaps not the kind taught at St. Xavier's. As he finished the incantation or whatever it was, he grabbed Galloway by the collar, neatly avoiding the chains, and apparated, taking his prisoner side-along. 

Robbie and Draco closed their mouths and Robbie looked confused.

"I thought..." he said, then shook his head. "I don't know what I thought. But you let the bastard get away, lad."

"I had to get you down," said James. "Draco was dealing with Galloway." 

Draco smiled. "And I thought the victim was more important than the criminal. If I was wrong, I'm sorry, but I doubt if Professor White would agree with you." 

White was looking as if he had very little idea of what had gone on in the last fifteen minutes or so but he smiled at Draco. "Was that - Potter?" he asked.

Draco just smiled back and James looked at him, startled. He had heard of Potter - that was a name he'd come to associate with the boy wonder - but hadn't realised that the man was now some kind of super-policeman after winning the Hogwarts war (as James called it to himself) virtually single-handedly. He supposed he should feel honoured to have met him but instead just felt concerned as to how much - or how little - Robbie remembered and just how much explaining he would have to do.

Robbie was looking at him hard. "Get away, man," he said, his north-eastern dialect thickening as it sometimes did in moments of stress. "I could have hung on for a few minutes." James carefully didn't say that he had already been 'hanging on' for far too many minutes and that his position plus the burns might have damaged his arms and hands permanently.

"I had to get you," he repeated, and to his surprise, Robbie smiled fleetingly and muttered something. "What?" he asked, thinking he'd maybe missed a reprimand he would later be expected to remember.

"I said you got me all right," said Robbie clearly, quickly moving across to White and getting his phone out of his pocket, keying in the station number and the ambulance one as he did so.  
"I don’t suppose either of you called 999?" They shook their heads in unison and Robbie explained to someone somewhere where they were and what was needed. 

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They were back in the car. White was in an ambulance on his way to Oxford and they had made their way back up the muddy lane. Draco was, they thought, behind them.

"Where's your cousin then? Does he need a lift?"

"He'll have gone the other way. There's a footpath..." James realised he hadn't taken the floods into account but it was better than having to explain apparating. 

"You're very alike. Handsome lads, the pair of you."

James tried to speak, failed and tried again. "In there, you said..."

"I know what I said. But don't mind me, lad. An old man can flirt without it meaning anything."

"And if I wanted it to mean something?"

“Wanted…?” Robbie’s voice was hoarse. He waited, not completing the question.

“City of dreaming spires and all that,” muttered James. “I’ve been dreaming…”

“Dreaming? Of…of…of…” This was not the hard-headed police inspector James knew. This Robbie sounded dazed. James decided to take a huge risk and put him out of his misery before he hit one of the juggernauts thundering along the dual carriageway. 

“Dreaming that you might want me. As a partner. Not as a police partner, I mean,” he finished, and looked at Robbie’s face. His expression was alternating at high speed between a kind of joyous epiphany and intense concentration on the road. 

“I…I…I…” he managed, when there was a lull in the traffic.

James took pity on his stunned boss. “We could talk about it later,” he said. “Not a lot later, but perhaps when we’ve parked the car.”

There was a long silence while they negotiated the A34 and then Robbie turned the car towards his own house instead of the station. "Thought we'd better get our shoes cleaned before we see Innocent," he said. There was a faint question in his voice and James just followed him out of the car and into the house. 

And then upstairs, and into the bedroom. Most people, he thought, didn't keep shoe cleaning materials in the bedroom. But that was all the coherent thinking he was destined to do for a while. He found himself pushed unceremoniously onto the bed and strong hands were tearing at his clothes. He could have taken his shirt off faster but it felt good to have Robbie undo the buttons, and again, saved explanations. 

He had fantasised about this but the reality was even better. They were both breathing hard, occasionally experimenting with random kisses to cheeks, eyes, nose. And eventually mouths and then James wondered if breathing was actually necessary to life at all. Robbie's hands caressed him firmly. Strong, steady strokes just as he'd imagined. And hardness pressing against his groin until he couldn't bear the wait any longer and heard himself begging, "Please, please, please," without being able to articulate exactly what he needed. But Robbie knew. 

They were well matched, both with long, highly aroused cocks, both with forceful thighs and plundering lips. They wrestled and struggled, both wanting mastery, until James acquiesced and lay still and let Robbie do whatever he wanted, which turned out to be what he, James, had wanted all along. His climax was dizzying and somewhere beyond the rainbow of his pleasure he heard Robbie moan and reach a similar state. 

Afterwards, after cleaning themselves up with a soft sponge and warm water, after he'd re-buttoned the shirt (and his trousers), and somehow tied his tie without it sporting a pattern of any kind, after Robbie had tentatively offered coffee and then said maybe they should report back instead, after all that - he looked into Robbie's eyes and saw that it might have been the first time but wouldn't be the last. 

When they finally got back to the station it seemed Innocent already knew that they'd rescued White and let Galloway go. There'd be a call out for his arrest, of course, but James knew he wouldn't be found. And all Innocent had to say was, "You took your time getting back here, gentlemen. Pity you didn't manage to clean your shoes on the way."

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"My hands are sore," said Robbie. "Stupid, that. I never touched the bastard and even though he strung me up, my hands were never in danger. I couldn't even reach any of the knots to try to undo them." 

"Maybe it's some kind of sympathetic reaction to what your wrists went through," said James, looking surreptitiously to make sure there were no burn marks on Robbie's palms. 

Robbie shrugged and rubbed Vaseline into his hands. "Though mind you," he said, "I can think of a better use for this stuff." They had decided not to bother with condoms. Robbie had been with no-one since Val and James had been with no-one since St. Xavier’s. The sixth form had opened his eyes and the seminary had closed them again. Now they were re-learning the joys of sex together and James was thoroughly content. He thought Robbie was, too.

They'd discussed experimenting with handcuffs but decided to wait till Robbie's crucifixion was a distant memory. Meanwhile, every night brought them closer together and convinced both of them that this was real, this was permanent.

Now they undressed quickly, not the frenzied tearing at each other's clothes of that first time, more the efficient speed of two men knowing exactly what they wanted and determined to get it as soon as possible. Naked on the soft duvet they explored each other, arousing, teasing, tantalising, working their way towards full communion but enjoying the foreplay almost as much as the act itself. Robbie was, by unspoken agreement, in charge. It wasn't, James thought, anything to do with the age difference, or even any innate difference in physical strength. It was more that Robbie seemed to feel a need to own him, and James felt a need to submit, to be owned, to belong. But each would take his turn to penetrate the other and tonight James flipped Robbie onto his back and started to move his thighs apart. He was unsurprised when Robbie's legs held him in an iron grip and an amused voice asked him what he was waiting for. The delicious thrill of two people getting as close as was possible made it impossible for him to last long, but it was enough to bring both of them to an almost simultaneous orgasm. He shuddered with passion, but instead of burning the duvet or the lampshade his magic simply drove him further into his lover's body until Robbie shouted something unintelligible and dropped the encircling legs, becoming limp and boneless beneath him. He followed, emptying himself into Robbie with a cry of need and victory.

They lay still and silent for a few minutes then James rolled off to the side, deciding that he really needed to allow Robbie to breathe. 

"If you hadn't found me like that, or rather, if that had never happened at all," said Robbie, "would you ever have said anything? I don't know whether I would. I thought I was too old for you, that you would just laugh at me."

"And I thought I was too young for you, too immature," said James, planting a kiss on his lover's neck. "I thought you'd see any move on my part as a lack of respect, too. But I dreamed."

Robbie's lips quirked. "So did I, lad," he said. "So did I."

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"You two young men can use your magic to do conjuring tricks, you know," said Theo White to his two visitors. "Let me show you. And Draco, don't look so disparaging. Muggle magic is difficult. You need to learn to deceive the eye. Has either of you got a handkerchief?"

"James always has a handkerchief, but..." Draco stopped as James drew a perfect white square from his pocket. No more scorching, and if Draco thought that was due to his lessons in control, well, let him think it.

Theo showed them how to wave the linen in such a way that the other hand was hidden and then produced a small bird which chirped indignantly. 

"You transfigured him from something?" Draco was looking for wizarding input.

"No, I hid him up my sleeve and let him slip down while you were watching me wave. Now let's see one of you do it."

Draco cheated, as James had known he would, and the conjuring lesson finished in accusations and laughter. 

"But some of the tricks you showed Adam..." James was remembering the candles and Theo smiled. 

"Ah, an old man always wants to impress the youngsters," he said. Then they took turns lighting candles without a wand and James won.

"I enjoyed that," said Draco as they headed between the evergreen birds to the car. "He's an interesting old man. I bet he was a good teacher. I wonder why he never came to Hogwarts."

"You and Hogwarts," said James. "It comes between you and your wits and you must have left what, fifteen or so years ago?"

"Schooldays are the happiest days of your life," said his cousin, with mock seriousness, and they both laughed as James started the engine. Draco would floo home from James' house, using the powder they kept on the mantelpiece for ease of access to each other's homes. 

"I quite liked St. Xavier's," said James, driving quickly through the Saturday football crowds to reach his drive. Robbie would be at the football, he thought, but they didn't live in each other's pockets, or only at night, perhaps. 

"By the way," said Draco, following him through the front door, "I have some time next week. I could make that potion you wanted."

"I don't need it any more."

Draco arched one eyebrow. "Fallen out of love, have we? All passion quenched? I thought that might be the case when I saw your handkerchief."

"Passion quenched, yes," said James. "But not in the way you mean. I don't need a potion, that's all. Love has its own magic, you know."

"Awww. A Malfoy being sentimental?"

"I'm not a Malfoy, just a cousin. I'm a Hathaway, and proud of it."

Draco looked at him. "Yes, but you're a wizard too. Don't forget that, James. And how about flying next weekend if the weather's half reasonable?" 

James' heart lifted. He knew that even though he hadn't gone to Hogwarts he was now inextricably part of that world. He loved a muggle with all his heart, but at the same time, he would always be a wizard. And those two truths, he thought, as he watched Draco take a pinch of floo powder, made his life somehow complete.

END


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